''Guidestones'' is a Canadian award-winningBanff World Media Festival /ref> thriller web series created by Jay Ferguson. It premiered in February 2012, distributed via email subscription as a real-time, interactive mystery series. In June 2012, the series launched a linear, on-demand version. The episodes are also available through CTV, a
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
application and
Hulu
Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...
.
Season Two is currently in post-production, and will debut in 2014.
''Season One'' follows Sandy Rai (Supinder Wraich), who is living in Canada on exchange from India, and Trevor Shale (Dan Fox), a fellow
Ryerson University
Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU or Toronto Met) is a public university, public research university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District, Toronto, Garden District, although i ...
School of Journalism student, as they become embroiled in the mystery of the
Georgia Guidestones
The Georgia Guidestones was a granite monument that stood in Elbert County, Georgia, United States, from 1980 to 2022. It was tall and made from six granite slabs weighing a total of . The structure was sometimes referred to as an "American St ...
. An unsolved murder starts them on a search for the truth, which leads them to the mysterious monument in rural Georgia. Sandy and Trevor begin to realize that the conspiracy they are unraveling may have apocalyptic repercussions.
''Season One'' was shot on location in Canada, the United States, and India on a budget of $300,000.In the expanding TV universe, webisodes look for a foothold The Globe and Mail
The series was produced by 3‘oclock.tv and iThentic in association with the
Independent Production Fund
The Independent Production Fund (IPF) is a Canadian private independent foundation that supports the production of Canadian dramatic digital media entertainment content and television series. It also provides professional development services and ...
(IPF) and the
Ontario Media Development Corporation
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Cana ...
(OMDC), and with help from corporate and organizational sponsors, including
Pizza Pizza
Pizza Pizza Ltd. is a franchised Canadian pizza quick-service restaurant with its headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. Its restaurants are mainly in the province of Ontario while others are located in Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and west ...
,
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
,
Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
,
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...
,
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
Independent Production Fund
The Independent Production Fund (IPF) is a Canadian private independent foundation that supports the production of Canadian dramatic digital media entertainment content and television series. It also provides professional development services and ...
announced funding approval for a second season.IPF announces funding for 15 web drama series Independent Production Fund
Format
''Guidestones - Season One'' was created in two versions: the first, a 50-episode "push" version, was launched online in February 2012 at and asked viewers to enter their email address in order to receive episodes in ‘real-time’, so that they could experience the events of the series in the same time frame as the characters. The "push" version could also be experienced on
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
through an official ''Guidestones'' application.
The second, launched in June 2012, is a 34-episode "on-demand" version, which allows viewers to watch the series at their own pace, and can be seen on
Hulu
Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...
Rosemary Dunsmore
Rosemary Dunsmore (born July 13, 1952) is a Canadian TV, film, and theatre actress, director, and educator. She was awarded a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her 1982 performance in ''Straight Ahead/Blind Dancers''. In 2009 she won the ACTRA Award f ...
as ''Jacqueline Glenndenning''
* Christina Jol as ''T.A.''
*
Amber Goldfarb
Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In M ...
as ''Rebecca Glenndenning''
*
Arnaud Binard
Arnaud Binard (born 18 January 1971 in Bordeaux) is a French actor and producer mainly known for his roles in many romantic or detective television hit-series broadcast throughout the French-speaking world such as ''Sous Le Soleil'' (1998-1999 ...
as ''Brooklyn Cott''
Reception
''Guidestones'' won the Rockie Award for Best Webseries - Fiction at the 2012
Banff World Media Festival
The Banff World Media Festival (formerly known as the Banff World Television Festival) is an international media event held in the Canadian Rockies at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta, Canada. The festival is dedicated to world t ...
, and was chosen as an Official Selection at the Marseille Web Fest.Marseille Web Fest /ref> In November 2012, the series was nominated for five
International Academy of Web Television
The International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) was founded in 2008 and is devoted to the advancement of the arts and sciences of streaming television and web series production.
Since 2011, the academy has hosted an annual awards ceremony cal ...
Awards, including Best Directing, Best Cinematography, Best Female Performance, Best Editing, and Best Supplemental Content.International Academy of Web Television Announces Nominees for the 2nd Annual IAWTV Awards IAWTV Awards
At the 2012
Digi Awards
Digi may refer to:
* Short for "digital" as in digicam, digiscale, digiscrap, digibee
* Digi Communications, a Romanian telecommunications company in Romania, Hungary, Spain and Italy
*Digi International, an American electronics manufacturer
*Digi- ...
, held in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, Guidestones was nominated and won for Best Web Series: Fiction. Digi Awards
In 2013 ''Guidestones'' received the award for Best Original Series Produced for Digital Media at the
1st Canadian Screen Awards
The 1st Canadian Screen Awards were held on March 3, 2013, to honour achievements in Canadian film, television, and digital media production in 2012. Canadian Screen Awards
The series won the 2013
International Emmy Award
The International Emmy Awards, or International Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based International Academy of Television Arts and S ...
for Best Digital Program: Fiction, awarded at the
MIPTV Media Market
MIPTV (french: Marché International des Programmes de Télévision) is an event which takes place annually in Cannes, France, using the facilities and infrastructure which the town has developed over the years to host other important events suc ...
in Cannes, France. International Emmy Awards
Additionally, the series has received a positive response from Wired (magazine), Wired.Guidestones Web Series Explores Mystery Behind Georgia Landmark Wired